This is a "beta" or test pressing or press demo of The Need for Speed for the 3DO console. It is burned on an official Electronic Arts CD-R and dated "11/3/94." It is not clear what format this date is in; D-M-Y would put it on the 11th of March 1994 which is well before the final release of the game.
The contents of the disc are encrypted as if it were a retail release, but the resultant disc image is different from retail. It will boot and run on emulators or consoles with a modded BIOS but does not run on stock retail consoles due to an invalid signature.
The game seems to play identically to retail in cursory testing, but
there a few files (.tga images) that are not present on a retail disc.
A decoded fstree for the Phoenix emulator is included in the archive.
This disc was found in the drive of a 3DO "Testing Station" console bought from a second-hand shop in Victoria, BC, in 2017. I was not able to find any further info about its origin. Victoria is relatively local to the offices of EA Vancouver (formerly EA Canada) and many former developers from the studio live in the area.
